Democrats and Republicans dug further into their respective positions
Monday: Republicans are calling on Democrats to negotiate over a
short-term spending bill and a debt-ceiling increase, and President
Obama says he is ready to negotiate over any topic - once the
Republicans pass legislation to re-open the government and raise the
U.S. borrowing limit without any conditions.

Senate Democrats
have begun working on a bill that would just raise the debt ceiling and
not change any other policy. It's unclear how many Republicans would
vote for such a bill, but Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,
acknowledged Monday that they would need bipartisan support. Because of
procedural rules that govern the Senate, the votes might not start until
the end of the week.

The U.S. is slated to run out of ability to
borrow money on Oct. 17. On CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, Treasury
Secretary Jack Lew warned that "nothing good" will come if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and cannot pay its bills.

The
current debt limit is $16.7 trillion dollars. The U.S. technically
exceeded that number in May, but Lew has been able to use extraordinary
measures to make sure other bills are paid on time. If the limit is not raised,
the government will have to withhold payments like Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid checks. It would also jeopardize the flow of
credit around the world.

According to a Pew poll released Monday,
the number of people who believe it is absolutely essential the debt
ceiling be raised is 47 percent, up seven points from July 2011, the
last time the U.S. came close to a default. But thirty-nine percent of
people say that a default on the debt would not cause major economic
problems.

Whether you believe it is necessary to raise the debt
ceiling may depend on your political leanings. Sixty-two percent of
Democrats think it is absolutely essential to increase the debt limit,
Pew found, compared with forty-five percent of independents and
thirty-six percent of Republicans. Tea party Republicans in particular
do not see a debt limit hike as critical: only 23 percent said it was.

During
a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency Monday, Mr. Obama
called on House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to extend the nation's
borrowing authority and to restore government funding with "clean"bills.
Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday that not enough votes in the House to do either without concessions by Democrats.

Mr.
Obama and Senate Democrats disagree. "There are enough Republican and
Democratic votes in the House of Representatives right now to end the
shutdown immediately," he said. If there aren't, then Boehner and the
Republican House leadership "should prove it," Mr. Obama added.

A CBS News estimate
reveals that there are 215 House members - 200 Democrats and 15
Republicans - who would vote to end the shutdown if Boehner was to put a
"clean" budget bill up for a vote. That's two short of a majority.

Republicans
have asked for negotiations to both restore funding to the government
and raise the debt ceiling. Mr. Obama reiterated a promise to negotiate
over a range of topics, including healthcare and energy policy, but only
after the government is reopened and the debt ceiling increased.

"We're not going to negotiate under the threat of further harm to our economy," he said.

But
when Boehner came to the floor Monday afternoon, he had nothing to say
about the president's demands. Instead, he repeated calls for
negotiations. "Mr. President, it's time to have that conversation before
our economy is put further at risk," Boehner said.

The American
people appear just as divided as their leaders. Forty-four percent of
people surveyed in the Pew poll say Republican leaders should give in on
their demand that a budget deal include cuts or delays to the
Affordable Care Act. An almost equal number, 42 percent, say Mr. Obama
should agree to changes to the law.

On top of that, 58 percent of
Democrats say it is unacceptable for Mr. Obama to agree to any cuts or
delays. Fifty-four percent of Republicans say the same of the GOP: it
would be unacceptable for them to agree to a deal that does not include
cuts or delays to Obamacare. That number rises among tea party
Republicans, 88 percent of whom say Mr. Obama should agree to cuts and
delays and 72 percent of whom say it would be unacceptable for GOP
leaders to accept anything less than a delay in implementation or
slashed funding for the law.

Gene Sperling, a senior Obama
economic adviser, indicated Monday morning that the White House might be
open to a short-term extension on increasing the debt ceiling once
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew exhausts all other options.

"There's
no question that the longer the debt limit is extended, the greater
economic certainty there will be in our economy which would be better
for jobs, growth and investment," Sperling said
at an event sponsored by Politico. "That said, it is the responsibility
of Congress to decide how long and how often they want to vote on doing
that."

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters later in
the day that the president is not asking for the debt ceiling to be
raised for a specific period of time, only that it be raised "without
drama or delay." They are supportive of the Senate Democrats' efforts,
he added.